JEFF EDELSTEIN: Five-year-old with spina bifida vs. the Hamilton school district

Jarrett Kane, 5, bottom right, with his mom, Kerri, his brother Tyler, Mary Pat Christie and Gov. Chris Christie at the governor’s annual Easter Egg Hunt for special needs children earlier this year.

Let’s knock this down to its most basic level: Jarrett Kane needs a bathroom he can use.

Jarrett just turned 5 and is set to enter kindergarten next year in the Hamilton school district. He’s a normal 5-year-old in every way. He loves superheroes, trains and baseball. He expects to play for the Trenton Thunder one day. He’s intelligent, funny, precocious, all the things you normally associate with little kids.

He was also born with spina bifida, a condition in which “a portion of the neural tube fails to develop or close properly, causing defects in the spinal cord and in the bones of the backbone,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

Jarrett needs a walker to get around. He can’t stand without it. He calls it his “Iron Man” and pretends to be Tony Stark.

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And according to his mother, Kerri Kane, there’s not one bathroom in the township’s 17 elementary schools that allows Jarrett to enter and be able to maneuver himself around with his walker.

And the district doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.

That’s the basic story.

The extended version? Even more troubling.

Jarrett still wears diapers. He can use the bathroom, knows how to use the bathroom, but because of his condition, he also deals with what’s known as a neurogenic bladder. In short, it’s weak. Leaky. He needs to be catheterized every three hours. His doctors at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in an effort to help Jarrett one day gain near-full control of his bladder, have him on a regimen where he uses the toilet — almost always successfully, for the record — for five minutes before catheterization.

“The school district is saying he doesn’t need to sit on the toilet,” Kane told me. “They’re proposing they just do the catheterization.”

It’s a full day kindergarten program.

“This helps strengthen his bladder,” Kane said. “If they limit this, he’ll lose function. If they take this away, it would be bad for him.”

But even if the district agrees with the CHOP team’s assessment, there’s simply no bathroom in any of the schools large enough to accommodate not only Jarrett, but also his personal care assistant and the school nurse for the catheterization and associated tasks. (Without getting into specifics, the regimen needs to be a bang-bang process for the sake of cleanliness.)

Kane is asking for one of two things: Either build a bathroom in one of the schools to accommodate Jarrett or send him to an out-of-district school, as every single elementary school in Hamilton predates the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. According to Kane, there are schools in (at least) Robbinsville, East Windsor, Bordentown and Lawrence that have a bathroom large enough for her son.

But that’s not all.

The playground at University Heights, where the district is proposing sending Jarrett, is set on a hill and filled with mulch with no “ramp only”-type of areas for play. Not usable for him. Again, playgrounds at other area schools are ADA compliant.

Kane, though, is willing to handle the playground situation herself. “I’ll raise money and take care of it,” she said, if only the school district would knock down a bathroom wall and add a few extra feet to the room.

“I want Jarrett to stay in the district,” she said. “Everyone knows Jarrett. All they really need to do is modify the bathroom.”

What’s funny — in the non-ha-ha variety — is the bathroom situation is simply one mother and her doctors against the district, whereas the playground situation is distinctly covered by federal law, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which guarantees rights to people with disabilities. And “playgrounds at public schools” are specifically covered, according to the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

Seems like a slam-dunk.

It’s been a two-and-a-half year fight thus far.

As a result, Kane has found herself as the co-leader of Hamilton Parents of All Learners, the special education parent advisory group that helps the 2,000 families of special needs students in Hamilton navigate through the system.

And it’s a system that needs work.

“I’d guesstimate 75 percent of parents have issues with school district with placement for the IEPs, (Individualized Education Programs)” Kane said. “At this point, I really don’t understand why they just don’t go ahead and make at least one school 100 percent ADA accessible.”

A fair point, especially for a district as large as Hamilton and with as many families in need of services.

As for Jarrett and his school placement for the next six years? Mediation was held last week.

“And that’s when I learned they thought he didn’t need a bathroom,” Kane said.

Dr. James Parla, the superintendent of schools, did return my phone call, but, by law, could not discuss the Kane — or any other — case with me.

The battle continues.

And it’s a battle Jarrett is growing aware of with each passing day. Kane brings her son to all meetings with the school district. He’s starting to get it, starting to understand what’s going on.

“He’ll fight for himself one day,” Kane said. “And he’s learning how to do it from me.”